The present invention is directed to index sheets that are directly printable by machines such as ink jet printers. It further is concerned with tabbed sheets having fold-over binding edges for feeding into copiers and printers for printing operations thereon. Additionally, it relates to constructions of index divider sheet assemblies, processes of manufacturing them and methods of using them.
A popular index divider product that is printable by laser printers is the "DIRECT PRINT Custom Dividers for Laser Printers" product, which has been available from Avery Dennison Corporation of Pasadena, Calif. since 1998. It has an index tab extending out from a tab edge thereof and an opposite binding edge flap, which is calendered and folded over onto the adjacent calendered portion of the body sheet and held down with a releasable adhesive. By folding the flap over and tacking it down, the effective width of the product is reduced so that it can be fed into today's printers or copiers.
An adhesive peel-off strip is adhered to the backside of the sheet along the tab edge and behind the tab of the DIRECT PRINT product. Thereby, the strip defines a straight edge perimeter for the product, improving feeding of the product into and/or passing of the product through a printer or copier. The strip is then peeled off of the sheet after the printing operation and disposed of. This product is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,743,566 ('566) (Hunter et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,792,297 ('297) (Hunter et al.). See also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,454 (Owen) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,836,710 (Owen). (These four patents and all other patents and other publications mentioned anywhere in this disclosure are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.) Additionally, see PCT Publications WO 98/07582 and 98/41406, both by ACCO USA, Inc.
The DIRECT PRINT product can thereby be fed in a portrait direction into laser printers, and the peel-off strip creates a rectangular sheet article which provides a continuous edge to run through the printer. When it is fed into tabloid-size ink jet printers that are designed to print eleven inch by seventeen inch sheets in a landscape orientation, it is fed binding edge first. This insures proper feeding because if it were fed peel-off strip edge first, the tab edge may catch in the printer.
For some of the tabloid-size laser printers when the product is fed in the landscape direction, peel-off strip last, the peel-off strip helps the printer correctly sense the edge of the sheet. That is, without the strip the edge of the sheet would be sensed about one half inch early, and once the sensor is triggered the printer does not print, and thus will not print on the tab. Examples of these printers are the HP 4V, 5SI and the Mopier printers from HP.
When the DIRECT PRINT product is fed in the portrait direction from feed trays in many ink jet printers, the sheets are not reliably picked up and fed into the printers. This is particularly true for the HP DeskJet 500C, DeskJet 1200C, DeskJet 1600C and Lexmark printers, and also the Canon Bubble Jet printers and Epson Stylus Color printers. These feed trays have corner separation tabs, which have a height of about one-quarter inch; more specifically, they are about three-sixteenths inch wide and one-quarter inch deep. The tabs are provided to separate the top sheet off of the rest of the stack for individual feed into the printer. Unfortunately, the DIRECT PRINT product hangs up at its folded-over flap on these clips or tray corner tabs of ink jet printers.